Here is the film version in 3 10-minute installments. Feel free to comment if you are interested in the similarities/differences between the short story in print and the cinematic adaptation.
Still hating it.
15 years ago
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Blog Writing for Tuesday, April 28th
In addition to reading the Faulkner short story and his Nobel Prize banquet speech (both links are posted in the Reading Links), before class on Tuesday, please revise and conclude the 2-poems paper you have already posted on your blog. You should revise what you've got and conclude the paper so it is a complete short essay (approximately 4 pages).
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Introduction Samples
A Key Line:
The first time the imagery of fire appears in Felicia Hemans’s poem, “Casabianca,” it is a figure of illumination: “The flame that lit the battle’s wreck / shone round him o’er the dead” (3-4). Not only does this fire literally make the scene of the boy, the ship, and the battle scenario visible, but it also illuminates the poem itself from within. In other words, the poem suggests within its own text one way of reading and interpreting it. This essay traces the ever-present yet subtly shifting image of fire in “Casabianca” as a means of constructing a compelling interpretation of the poem. The hypothesis is that following the flame will reveal Hemans’s text to be a symbolic critique of war.
An Outside Image:
There’s a moving scene in the recent blockbuster film franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, in which a young boy demonstrates amazing courage in the face of death when all the adults around him are acting like cowards. What is striking about this image is not that it is something new, but, rather, that it is so familiar because it can be found in many texts, especially about boys and the sea. From Peter Pan to the children in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island to so many children’s movies today, there are numerous accounts of young boys demonstrating courage in juxtaposition with cowardly adults. But if this is just a simple image of a child’s surprising courage, it seems unlikely that the image would be so long-lasting. There must be something more complex to this, and this essay explores these complexities.
The first time the imagery of fire appears in Felicia Hemans’s poem, “Casabianca,” it is a figure of illumination: “The flame that lit the battle’s wreck / shone round him o’er the dead” (3-4). Not only does this fire literally make the scene of the boy, the ship, and the battle scenario visible, but it also illuminates the poem itself from within. In other words, the poem suggests within its own text one way of reading and interpreting it. This essay traces the ever-present yet subtly shifting image of fire in “Casabianca” as a means of constructing a compelling interpretation of the poem. The hypothesis is that following the flame will reveal Hemans’s text to be a symbolic critique of war.
An Outside Image:
There’s a moving scene in the recent blockbuster film franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, in which a young boy demonstrates amazing courage in the face of death when all the adults around him are acting like cowards. What is striking about this image is not that it is something new, but, rather, that it is so familiar because it can be found in many texts, especially about boys and the sea. From Peter Pan to the children in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island to so many children’s movies today, there are numerous accounts of young boys demonstrating courage in juxtaposition with cowardly adults. But if this is just a simple image of a child’s surprising courage, it seems unlikely that the image would be so long-lasting. There must be something more complex to this, and this essay explores these complexities.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
2-Poem Writing: Due April 20th
For Tuesday, please write a 500-600 word draft in which you take 2 poems that fit into a thematic category (gender, class, race, environment, religion/spirituality, etc) and put them into conversation with each other. Try for a tentative thesis in your introduction paragraph(s) and some paragraphs of analysis of evidence. I'd suggest leaving the conclusion till later.
Post the writing on your blog before class meets that day. And keep a hard copy because I'll be asking you to revise and extend this writing.
Post the writing on your blog before class meets that day. And keep a hard copy because I'll be asking you to revise and extend this writing.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Poetry and Pop Culture: Kumar's Math Poem
“The Square Root of 3” by Kumar Patel
I fear that I will always be
A lonely number like root three
A three is all that's good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath a vicious square root sign,
wish instead I were a nine
For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic
I know I'll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality
When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three
Has quietly come waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer
We break free from our mortal bonds
And with a wave of magic wands
Our square root signs become unglued
And love for me has been renewed.
Blog Assignment Due April 16
This is a 2-part assignment.
Part 1: Write a 250-350 word position on how the use of a well-known popular culture figure shapes the poem "The Other Universe of Bruce Wayne." How does it impact your reception of the poem? Does it make the poem seem more or less literary? Does it engage you in different ways from poems without such familiar points of entry? Try to tie your ideas to evidence in the text as best as you can.
Part 2: Time for some creativity, and in the process engaging with the form of the villanelle. It's good practice to write one to see what goes into the making of a strict form poem. So, select a popular culture fictional character and write a villanelle. Please post a pic or two with it as well. Maybe a romantic villanelle from Brian to Lois or Millhouse to Lisa...
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